obscurity
by hobbsey
Summary: The story behind the story, so to say. Roger and Dorothy discover the secrets of RD as well as each other. As FINISHED as it's going to get.
1. Stillness

"R. Dorothy Wayneright…" the girl said, from the middle of nowhere. Dressed all in black, you couldn't tell her from the rest of the darkened room. "R. Dorothy Wayneright. Why…? Why do I have to be an android..?"

Her face never left the expression of indifference- her question remained at a monotone. She would have sighed, had she the capability to do so.

She didn't. And so she simply listened… listened to the quiet sounds of night in his mansion. Mostly quiet anyhow- his occasional snoring disrupted the peace.

She waited for morning to come, for the first shaft of artificial light to peer through the window of her bedroom. She knew that, truly, the light would never really come.

He moaned- it seemed that he was having a nightmare again.

"Is it R.D?" she wondered, but inside she knew it was not true.

It was the memories.

Her feet padded slowly, making no sound. She creaked open the door.

He was trembling again. He shivered.

She wanted to help him- to chase away the brutal memory that drove him near insane. However, being an android and incapable of emotion, she wasn't sure how to make him feel any better. She had no idea how he could possibly feel.

All she felt was indifference. ALWAYS indifference.

And so she would just sit by his bed, wondering how she could possibly make him feel any better- how she could ever identify with the elusive memories and emotions entitled to humans.

HUMANS.

Not androids. Never androids.

Most certainly she resembled a human… spoke like one… had the same skills as one. But she had no emotion.

How could she ever make any difference in his life?

He said it himself- he didn't need anyone. 

…but he looked so afraid…

Being careful not to wake him, she gently sat by his side. His hair was a mess- a far cry from the normal gelled smoothness. His face showed fear… danger… hatred..?

_What IS fear?_

Contemplating the foreign emotions that humans had the gift to behold, she unknowingly ran her hand through his matted hair.

He sighed, and his face calmed.

Noticing the tension leave his body, Dorothy glanced at him. Lying there, he looked almost like an innocent child whose mother had just sung him a lullaby… chased away the monsters.

_…serene? Is that the word?_

She climbed back off the bed and sat in the corner nearest the door, glancing at the alarm clock he never listened to.

6:05.

In only fifty-five minutes, she would have to play some loud piano concerto to wake him up.

Until then, however, she was content to just watch him sleep, to see the calm expression on his face and hear his heavy breath fill the room.

_Roger…_


	2. Breakfast

He awoke to the same piano concerto he did every day. The loud banging Dorothy did on the keys every morning was enough to give ANY man a headache.

Roger grumbled and got out of bed. "DOROTHY! How many times do I have to tell you to stop that infernal piano playing?"

She just looked up at him and calmly said "Breakfast is ready, Roger Smith. You should get to the table before your eggs get cold."

Roger sighed and proceeded off to the table, wondering just what kind of questions Dorothy would ask him today. She ALWAYS seemed to have some question to ask him- some kind of question about humanity or emotions that he didn't quite know the answer to.

In which case, he'd make a sarcastic remark and move on.

He wondered just how many bits of sarcasm he had left in him.

Reaching the table, Roger sat down. "Good morning, Norman."

"Good morning, Roger. I trust you had a pleasant rest?"

"Not really. I haven't been lately."

"I'm terribly sorry. Here are your eggs."

Roger nodded and ate his eggs quietly. Dorothy didn't seem to be coming. 

_Is that good or bad?_

She sat down across the table from him, and also began to eat. She wondered what the juice and eggs actually TASTED like.

She wondered if she'd ever know.

"Roger, I have a question for you," she said calmly.

He'd been expecting it. She could tell by the look on his face. "Fire away."

"How does it feel to be in love?"

The question startled him. This was certainly… tense…

"Er… well…"

She stared at him coolly from across the table. Roger wondered why his cheeks were turning so warm all of a sudden.

"I think it's different for everyone, Dorothy."

There. He'd avoided yet another direct answer.

"Then how is it for you, Roger Smith?"

_Uh-oh. This is not good._

There was a pause. Roger averted his gaze down to the half-eaten egg, trying to think of an answer.

He couldn't.

"Well, Dorothy, I suppose…"

She cocked her head slightly to the left, telling him without words to go on.

He couldn't think of what to say.

"Why do you need to know anyway! You're an ANDROID! You don't need to know about feelings!"

He climbed out of his chair, pulled on his jacket, and stormed away.

Dorothy was still sitting at the table, looking at Roger's half eaten egg.

She stood up, surprising Roger. "Roger Smith, you are a louse," she said, losing the calm in her voice. She ran off toward her bedroom, leaving Roger looking astounded.

Norman re-entered the room. "Someone just called for you, Roger. I recommend you go answer it."

Roger shook his head, regaining his normal demeanor, and exited the room.

Dorothy laid on her bed, her face in the pillow. If she could have cried, she would have.

Did he hate her? Was that why he would never answer her questions? Did he care more about that horrid Angel than her?

She shuddered at the thought of Roger caring for such a vile person as Angel. She'd ripped up that business card for the sole reason of making sure that he never would. She did NOT want him to fall into Angel's trap


	3. Routine

Coming to his office, Roger sat down at the desk. He read the piece of paper that had the girl's number on it, trying to make sense of the scrawling.

__

Note to self: Improve handwriting.

Finally distinguishing a series of digits off the piece of paper, he picked up the receiving end of the phone and dialed the number.

832-9127…

The other line rang. Roger waited patiently for someone to pick it up.

"…Hello?"

"Yes, my name is Roger Smith and I was just called by a Ms. Jehovahwitz. Is she in right now?"

"This is she."

There was a pause as both waited for the other to speak.

After a moment of hearing each other breathe over the phone, Roger broke the silence.

"What is it you called me about, Ms. Jehovahwitz?"

"My daughter."

There was another pause.

Roger was beginning to get a bit annoyed.

_Does she realize that I can't help her if she won't even tell me what she called about?_

He sighed and decided to try again.

"What about your daughter? Was she kidnapped… murdered…?"

"I'm not sure. She was there one moment and gone the next. We didn't even hear her scream."

"We?"

"My husband and I."

She stood by the door to his office, listening.

If there was one thing she liked about being an android, it was the heightened senses.

There was an obvious tone of annoyance to Roger's voice, and she guessed that whoever this client was, she wasn't cooperating.

_Good. Stay here, Roger._

_You're needed here more than you are there._

"So you have absolutely no clue what happened to her?"

"I have no idea. She left us a note saying she was meeting a friend down by the old subway… we went for her at dinnertime and she was gone."

"You do realize that this isn't the job of a Negotiator."

"…yes… but you have such a reputation that we wouldn't settle for any less."

Roger paused before responding.

"I'll have to double the fee, seeing as this isn't a case I'd normally take on."

"That's fine. Can we meet you down in the subway at around 7:00 tomorrow morning?"

"…"

_The subway…_

Down the ladder in the subway…

She saw the look of tension on Roger's face.

He didn't want to go back there. Especially with that arm, it would be quite a job climbing down that ladder.

_Stay here. If you go back down there…_

She'll find you, Roger.

"7:00 tomorrow morning. Sharp. Don't be late, or my fee goes up."

"Understood, sir. Thank you so much."

She hung up the phone and smiled. Her eyes flashed under the red hood.

_I'll kill you, Roger Smith._

She hurried down the passage. It was abandoned. It was ALWAYS abandoned.

It had been abandoned since forty years ago. Its mysteries were known only to her.

However, some others shared her memories…

Some others knew the tunnel's secrets.

Hearing the dial tone, Roger hung up the phone.

Seemingly in a daze, he walked out the door without even noticing Dorothy there.

"NORMAN!" he called. "Norman, get me something strong!"

He continued walking down the hall, now and then bumping into some table.

_Damn tables. Why'd I put those there anyhow?_

"…Roger?"

"What're you doing here, Dorothy?"

"I came up to apologize for my outburst at the table this morning. You are correct. I am an android, and thus need no knowledge of human emotion."

He stared right through her. His face looked utterly blank, while still being tense.

It was those memories again.

Fragmented glimpses into a childhood he didn't even remember.

It looked almost like snipped cels from b-rate movies put together on the same reel.

Movies with absolutely nothing in common.

A bar code.

An eye.

_My eye?_

He shook his head and wandered back into the bedroom.

Perhaps some sleep would clear all this up. 

Across the city, she laughed. The high, cold, insane laugh that would disturb his dreams for longer than he suspected.

__


	4. Midnight

The darkness slipped through the room silently, unnoticed by the figure tossing within the bed.

_What genius said that sleep calms your nerves, anyhow?_

_I think I'll wring that idiot's neck. If I can ever find him._

After all, this 'sleep' had only gotten him more worked up, far from being calmed – far from his normal cool swaveness. Far from how things should be.

He should have been sleeping peacefully, but instead he was lying with the bedclothes off, sweating, although outside it was snowing. He shouldn't have awoken screaming.

_This isn't supposed to happen this way…_

The cursed visions wouldn't leave his head. The countless cars and buildings painted with a single message… 'Cast in the name of God, Ye not guilty'. The snow falling unrelentlessly, pounding on his face as he trudged through it, oblivious to the effects of numb and cold. The frozen tears on his face as he carried her… her abandoned body… to the building where some group of spirits sang praise to who-knows-what. The snow, falling on her pale white face, caught in her auburn hair. And the laughter… the horrible, piercing laughter…

The blood.

And thus, he found himself not in the middle of some raging storm, but safe at home in his own bed, screaming out in terror and pain.

Cloaked by the darkness, he crept down the hall to the room where she slept… recharged… sat all night in dysfunction… 

_I don't even know if she sleeps at night._

He opened the door slowly, glad that it didn't creak. With her heightened senses, she could have heard the smallest noise. He peered around uneasily, bracing himself for her sudden appearance behind him and her far from enthusiastic greeting.

It didn't happen.

Instead, he could distinguish a lump behind the light blue-gray of the canopy. She was in bed, laying down, asleep or no.

He had never been in this room before, even before she had come along. He didn't know WHY he shouldn't go in, but an aura of sadness crept up in his heart every time he came near to entering. He had never seen the ornate vanity in the corner, the extensive closet of fine dresses. He had never before felt the silk of the canopy draping, the soft, smooth feeling akin to the rare emotion of tenderness.

He had also never felt tenderness before, as far back as he knew, and thus was unable to compare it to silk until now.

She was facing him, curled up in a small ball, with the covers barely touching her feet. One arm was behind the feather pillow, the other close to her face, lying face-up on the bed. Her hair was lying on top of her face, covering part of her closed eyes. The white nightgown that she wore fluttered occasionally from the light breeze blowing through the open window. The only sound in the room was that of small breaths, slow but sound.

She was asleep.

He stood there and watched for awhile, feeling strangely calmed by the sight of her small chest heaving up and down with each breath, instead of being stained red with his blood, cold and dead. For some strange reason, it reminded him of someone else… someone who's presence still filled the room, mingling itself with hers and the faint night breeze.

The snow flitted through the room, leaving tiny flecks of white on his black robe, becoming caught in his tousled hair as he reached a hand out to pick up the tiny bear by her side. He studied it closely, and the sight of the well-loved toy stirred something inside him.

He slumped to the floor, holding the bear, and began to cry.


	5. Client

He was still there, on the floor, holding the bear – asleep – in the morning.

She stirred, sat up in the bad, and blinked. As she put her feet on the floor to slide them into her slippers, the fact that there was a large bump there shocked her, and so she jumped.

After recovering from the initial surprise of having a large black-and-white thing on her floor, curled up, she crouched down to see what it was.

"…Roger?"

There was no response from the large lump, so she prodded it slightly and tried again.

"…Roger?"

This time, it moved, and sat up.

Roger's eyes widened. "Dorothy?"

"Roger, what are you doing in here?"

"…I… uhm… came to apologize to you. For being so cold-hearted yesterday. I thought you would be awake, but you weren't, and…"

He quickly hid the brown, fluffy bear behind his back.

"…I guess I fell asleep. I was pretty beat. Sorry for causing you a shock."

She chuckled. "That's okay, I was tired too."

__

…did she just LAUGH?

…she's smiling at me…

Dorothy noticed Roger staring blankly at her, and asked "What is it, Roger?"

"…nothing."

They sat there, Roger on the floor, a teddy bear behind his back, and Dorothy crouched down in front of him, for a moment, each observing the other.

Then., suddenly, Roger jumped to his feet.

"What time is it, Dorothy?"

"…I believe that it is 6:45. Why do you need to know, Roger?"

"SHIT!" Roger yelled, and tore down the hall.

He dropped the bear on the floor.

Dorothy could hear him hurling curses at himself as he changed into his suit as she picked up the bear.

_The bear?_

She sat there for awhile longer, holding the bear in one hand and staring at it, then took it to go play piano with her.

Roger, meanwhile, was rushing out the door toward the subway at the other side of town.

He jumped into the Griffon with practised ease, turned it on and sped at around 90 MPH toward the subway.

He also checked his watch. 6:55.

__

Dammit, why did I have to sit there and talk to Dorothy anyhow? It's not as if she has any feeling to make a decent reaction.

Part of him said this, but part rejected it and remembered her tiny chuckle. And, for some reason or another, this latter part of him caused his cheeks to flush red.

He parked the Griffon and began to descend the subway, to go down the tunnel to meet with his client.

__

A flash of red.

A barcode.

An eye.

My eye?

A room full of identical children.

Am I there?

A feeling of estrangement.

…a teddy bear.

Roger started back from the force of the conflicting emotions that flooded through him. His still-wounded arm was throbbing. He tried to resist a sudden urge to scream, and instead put one foot in front of the other, traveling down the tunnel.

Toward his client.

She was waiting there, at the end of the tunnel, for him. She cackled to herself slowly and took off the red hood.

"I'll kill you, Roger Smith," she said to herself. It was a fact, not an idea. There was no room for debate in her mind.

The tint of the red lights in the subway dyed her white skin crimson, turned her auburn hair into a blazing inferno. It reflected off the black velvet dress and made it seem warm.

The figure of Paradigm City's top Negotiator appeared in the entrance to the passage, and she grinned an evil, sardonic smile.

"…Dorothy?"

Roger was astounded to see his 'maid' waiting for him patiently at the end of the subway.

"…Dorothy, did you follow me?"

There was no response from the girl in black. She looked down at her feet.

"…Mr. Smith, I don't know who you are talking about. I would like to discuss my missing daughter with you. Please come closer."

Hesitatingly, Roger took a step forward.

She grinned at the floor, at the spatter of blood that surrounded her.

"Mr. Smith, I would really like to be able to see you clearly as I talk to you."

__

This lady is an odd one.

"Listen, I don't have all day, Mrs. Jehovawitz. Just tell me about your daughter and I'll see what I can do."

She looked up.

"My… daughter… has been taken from me by a louse, Mr. Smith. I am intent on getting rid of him, once and for all."

"That's not my job…" Roger replied, faltering at the sight of her eyes. They reflected no light. They were flat, black, and malicious.

"You are right, Roger Smith…" she said, becoming more and more intense, losing the calm edge in her voice. She lifted a gun that had been in her right hand.

"Your job is to die."

__


	6. Questions

She shot the gun with precision.

And he fell.

_…it's that room… Dorothy's room…_

But that woman isn't Dorothy…

..she's crying.

Why?

"You will DIE, Roger Smith!"

..Dorothy?

Why are you…

She smiled. Her eyes glinted in the tainted light of the subway.

She took a stick of lipstick out of her basket, and wrote all too familiar words on the subway wall.

'Cast in the name of God, Ye not guilty.'

"Goodbye, Roger Smith."

He woke up three hours later on the cold stone floor. His chest was bandaged, but other than that it was bare.

He bolted up, noticing a figure beside him.

"I was afraid you weren't gonna wake up that time. Good thing I got here."

"..Angel?"

She stood up and flicked her blonde hair behind her head. "Yeah, it's me. Don't count on my ever saving you again, though. I only did it because Mr. Rosewater wanted me to."

"Still working for him?"

She smirked. "Yeah. I actually came down here on an assignment from him."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Why are YOU down here, Roger?"

"…I had a client."

"Odd place to meet a client at, down here…"

"Well, it wasn't a normal client."

"Obviously, or you wouldn't have been shot so early on. Who was it?"

"The girl in the red hood. From before."

Angel raised one eyebrow slightly, and helped Roger to stand. "Really." It was more of a statement than a question, as though she had expected that.

"Yeah. What kind of assignment has Rosewater got you on?"

"According to him, there's a room someplace down here. He said to find it."

"Why would he care about some damned room?"

Angel turned on him and began walking down the subway.

"Because, Roger he _remembers_. Unless I'm mistaken, you do too."

And she was gone.

As he was driving the Griffon home, Roger decided on a whim to turn on the radio. It never hurt to see what was going on, after all…

"…and, in other news, today another murder victim was found. The familiar 'Cast in the name of God, Ye not guilty' was found written on the victim's mirror. No leads have been found yet as to who the culprit is. Dan Dastun, upon hearing of this fifth in the crime spree, was very peeved."

Dastun's voice came over the radio as Roger reached the stoplight.

"Although we haven't found any real leads yet, I have a pretty good idea of who the culprit is. We'll be sure to nail him.

"…the forecast for tomorrow is…"

Roger flicked off the radio, recalling Dastun's suspicions of him being the serial killer. He pulled in the driveway doubtfully, trying to put the puzzle pieces together.

_If only I had all the pieces._

Norman was there to greet him at the door.

"Welcome home, Master Roger. I trust your meeting went well…?"

"It didn't, in case you couldn't tell by the fact that I'm all bandaged up."

"I'm terribly sorry, Master Roger. Come inside, we should put some peroxide on this to clean it up."

Roger grudgingly allowed Norman to escort him inside and to one of the many bathrooms. As Norman took off the bandages and began carefully pouring the stinging liquid on Roger's chest, he was asked an unexpected question.

"Norman, you've been buttling here since before the Accident, right?"

"…why, yes, Master Roger. Ever since I was a teenager, I believe."

"Do you know who lived in Dorothy's room before her?"

"…I believe it was another lady, but she died when you were small. I wouldn't concern myself about it if I were you."

"It's just that everytime I go near there, I feel… like I'm lost and alone."

"Honestly, Master Roger, I don't know any more about it than that. There was a woman in there, but I remember nothing else about her."

"Does this place have an attic?"

"Yes."

"Show me there."

__


	7. Memories

She came across him in the evening, having been sent up to tell him that dinner was ready. He was unpacking box after box in the old, dusty attic. His tall frame barely squeezed into the space, and his normally pristine jacket had become a home for around a thousand dust motes. His hair was tousled as though it had been rubbing against the top too much. He leafed through album after album, picture after picture, his eyes far away and distant.

"…Roger, dinner is ready…"

He looked up at her, but only for an instant. She stood just outside the door, staring at him curiously. If an android could be curious.

"Have Norman bring it up here," he stated flatly, and returned to looking through the boxes.

"What are you looking for?"

"…that room you sleep in… I don't know who was there before. I want to find out."

"May I help you?"

"Sure, but I advise against wearing black up here. You'll get it all dirty, and God knows that the drycleaners are getting more expensive every day."

"I will be back in a moment in something more suitable, Roger."

She left the room, her feet padding softly against the creaking floorboards. He looked to the well-played, fuzzy brown bear at his side. One of the eyes was on the verge of falling out, and some of the felt had rubbed off the nose.

_What IS it about that bear…? That room?_

He sighed and looked through the pictures in the album. Most of them depicted a young couple – no older than thirty at the most – doing various activities… getting married… the home… the rooms… nothing you wouldn't find in any other photo album in Paradigm.

But there was something about the people in the photos.. something in their smiling faces, perhaps, that intrigued Roger, and he kept leafing through the book. Occasionally he would stop at a particular picture and pick it gingerly out of the album. There was one of the woman sitting on a swing in what must be a garden, reading, with a glass of something by her side. There was a little boy on her lap of no older than two or three. He was pointing at the book with great interest.

"Roger, would this be more appropriate?"

Dorothy had come back into the room, this time in a floaty blue-gray dress. It draped over her slender body in a way that looked befitting to a statue, and the gray made a stark contrast to her auburn hair.

"Yeah, that's better."

She came to sit beside him. "Where do I start?"

"Just look through these boxes… and if you find anything interesting, tell me."

They sat for awhile, looking through album after album, journal after journal, and hundreds of pictures. They showed the house before Roger could remember it. There were several watercolor paintings of landscapes – beaches, plants, life thriving in every corner.

One of these watercolors stood out in stark contrast to all the others. A dark room, lit only by blood-red fixtures on the walls. Children all over the floor, pale and huddled up, with fear in their tiny hand-drawn eyes. All over the room there were mechanical fixtures that looked eerily familiar to Roger. There was blood on the floor, bullets littering the jackets of the children, the red light gleaming and setting the room afire. And, in the middle of all the chaos, one boy stood alone in the center, and looked straight at the viewer.

A barcode.

An eye.

_My eye?_

He froze, staring at the picture. Dorothy looked over from the volume she was currently holding for a moment. "Roger, there's an entry in here… it…"

Her voice trailed off as she looked at him, rigid and pale, his hands shaking, holding the painting as though it were a death sentence. His eyes were wide and his posture looked as though he had fallen onto the ground.

And, no matter how hard she tried, she could not wrench the picture from his hands. Instead, she looked onto the back and read the looping script.

_This… this is where they took him. I went to visit him today – my one visit to my son for the year. It was a horrible place, all those children being tortured, learning to use those machines… and all the blood that those too weak to carry on had shed. I wonder what will become of him… my child…_

Dorothy slowly undid his death grip on the watercolor. He sat as though paralyzed, his eyes staring blankly ahead.

"…Roger, please wake up…"

There was no response from him. His pupils dilated, unfocused, as he stared into nowhere. Her eyes widened and she began to shake him.

"Roger, please wake up!"

He fell to the floor, taken back by the force of her pleas. His head hit the wood with a rather loud bang, and he started from his reverie. He bolted straight up and grabbed her by the shoulders.

"Dorothy… that woman… who was in your room… is my mother…"

Not even inches from his face, she put her hand on his cheek to wipe away a tear.

"She was my mother… and she… died…"

__

The garden was blooming better than ever that summer. She sat out on the swing in the backyard, with him on her lap.

"Do you want to review the alphabet again today, Roger?"

He nodded vigorously. He had loved to read, especially outside where the warm air could wrap around him like his mother's arms.

She opened the book, revealing brightly printed letters on the page. She took his hand in hers and pointed at each letter as she recited it.

"A is for apple. B is for button. C is for cat. D is for dog. E is for elephant."

All of a sudden, she turned him around on her lap and made an elephant face, sticking her tongue out with her hands up by her ears, widespread. "Arooooooo!" he squealed, laughing. She laughed along with him, and went back to the alphabet, still giggling.

A young man came out of the doorway. "Oh, so you're not going to include ME in the fun?"

The boy laughed some more. "C'mon Daddy, let's play! Piggyback ride! Piggyback ride!"

The man picked him up and set him on his broad shoulders. She smiled, watched her husband and son laugh, and sipped her lemonade. Her blue-gray dress flowed in the slight summer breeze.

"Look Daddy, the sun!"

"Just like Mr. Sunny, right?" he said, pulling a teddy bear from inside his hood.

The boy smiled. "Right, and just like you and mommy and happiness!"

She folded her arms around him, and he cried.

__


	8. Artwork

It was another sleepless night for Roger, as he relived the memory over and over in his mind. He could almost smell the summer air and feel the cloth of his mother's dress. It stood out in such stark contrast to all the other fragmented cels he had experienced… the barcode, the eye.

He turned onto his back, finding it difficult to breathe with his face stuffed into a pillow. He also discovered, when he took his face out of the soft clutches of the pillow, that his face was wet.

_Have I been crying again?_

He sighed and began to try and situate himself for sleep again, turning the damp pillow onto the other side. It took nearly an hour for him to get comfortable, and even then he found he couldn't clear his mind. Thoughts kept drifting across it as if they were in the ocean, just waiting for him to fish them out. Problem was that tonight he really didn't feel like pondering the innermost workings of the world OR of his mind – he just wanted to go to sleep.

He knew somewhere inside him that going to see Dorothy wouldn't help too much – she was in that room, where his mother had lived, and even if she hadn't been, Dorothy was always something that Roger was thinking about. Not intentionally, of course, but someplace inside him he had a vague feeling that there was something more to Dorothy than he could see. Something that nobody could touch…

Knowing that he wouldn't get any more sleep tonight, he roused himself out of bed, turned off the alarm, and started to walk down the halls.

_If somebody were to walk by right about now, they'd think the house was haunted…_ he thought, imagining a tall, paler-than-natural man walking down the hall at midnight. Not that it was too far-fetched an idea.

As he walked down the expansive halls of the mansion, he noticed that there were doors all over – doors he had never walked through to the best of his recollection He vaguely wondered why, and found himself walking through one of said doors.

The room that he entered wasn't particularly something he deemed necessary in the household, but he found himself eager to explore it nonetheless. The room was filled with art – sitting on easels, thrown in piles on the floor, stuck under enormous jars of paint. Some of the paintings were only half-finished before having been tossed aside to make room for some new endeavor, and you could see the rough pencil outlines jutting through the latter half of the painting.

Being careful to not disturb a single work of art, Roger turned to the "newest" work – the one sitting on a large easel with a palette sitting down by it. It looked as though the artist had abandoned her painting suddenly, and intended to come back – jars of paint were still open, brushes remained unclean. It was a floral painting, or the garden Roger had seen in his memories, and so he knew it must have existed once. But instead of focusing on the brilliant colors of the flowers, the picture seemed… lonely… somehow. He looked to the center, where the picture remained at an outline. He could see a single figure… in a dress… bowing her head with he hands clasped in front of her. He saw the roughly painted flowers droop as they turned toward her, and Roger decided it wasn't too far out to presume that the woman was wearing black.

He, of course, knew that the woman who had done these many works of art was his mother, but he felt more detached from this than from the photographs. Occasionally there was a picture with him in it, but never anything like the one…

_Darkness._

Blood.

Fear.

…I was… there?

A barcode, an eye… a painting…

What is it I'm not seeing?

What is this leading to?

He curled up on the floor, next to the easel. Another sleepless night…

-_-

There had always been one strange building in Paradigm, a place where people went but didn't know why. They went there, and knelt beneath its quavering structure, and sang. They would gather all at once, whenever they felt they were called. No one knew why they were there. 

Roger was there. He didn't know why either. He looked over to the people in their best clothes, huddled up against the snowstorm under the half-gone roof, singing, and wondered if they were crazy. One of the men walked over to him. "Bless you, sir," he said, "But don't you wish to get out of the cold? Come join us, sir, in our celebration!"

Roger stared at the man and gently pried his hand off of the suit's black sleeve. "I'm sorry, sir, but I'm waiting for someone." He smiled cordially, the man nodded, and walked back to the building, still singing.

Roger looked behind him, considering taking the man up on his offer, but by the time he'd turned around the man was gone, and the people were too, as though they never had been there. The only thing he saw was a corrupted skyscraper, and a single figure leaning against the wall…

He bolted over, running as though he never had before, but the building seemed to get further and further, and finally it collapsed. He let out one wild yell and threw himself at the structure, digging through the rubble for whoever had been in there. Clearing away the dirt, he was able to make out a strand of auburn hair, a pale white face… a hand…

She smiled, and grasped his hand in her own.

"_This phoenix rises from the ground… and all these wars are over…_"

He voice was quiet, but she smiled, even through the rasp and the darkness that was overtaking her. Roger could see her blood – red, like life itself – spreading out through the stones. 

"…_over_…"

She gave his hand a single squeeze, then her grip loosened, and she grew cold. He could feel his eyes filling with tears, but he brushed them away before they had a chance to fall. He concentrated his whole being on lifting her from the ruins of the building, and carrying her someplace he knew she'd be safe.

_The man._

The people….

The… church…

He trudged through the snow and the sleet, not even feeling the cold as it numbed his body. He barely took a passing glance at the cars, buildings, and homes marked with those insane red accusations… not guilty…

No, he wasn't guilty, but he very much doubted he was cast in the name of whatever-it-was. He averted his face from the mansion that had once been his home as he walked across town, a deadened man carrying his final load.

He reached the collapsing building… the church, he remembered it was called, long ago… and nodded at the man who had earlier asked for him to join them. He went up to an odd kind of table at one end of the building and laid her down there, brushing the last few strands of fiery hair out of her face, and kneeling down at the spot. The people came over to him, singing a song he'd never heard before, but one he knew. The old man put his hand on Roger's shoulder, in some gesture of comfort. The tears fell unbidden down Roger's face, and he found himself singing with the rest of them. He couldn't recall how he knew the words or what they meant, but they filled his heart, and so he sang.

The old man walked up to the other side of the table, and began to talk.

"Lord, bless this girl as she ascends into your holy realm. Accept her soul and give unto her your eternal love. Also, bless this man who kneels before you, and forgive him for his sins, for this world has enough of a burden on him already."

He turned his face down to Roger, who had stopped singing, finding he suddenly had no voice.

"You know what you must do. I will bury her… if you don't come back."

Roger nodded and rose to his feet. "Thank you, Father…" he whispered, and headed out the door.

The laughter rang in his ears, guiding him. He reached it – the room in his mother's painting, without remembering his way there. She was there. He drew his hand from inside his pocket and summoned the cursed machine… for once and for all…

And she shot her gun. It hit him, and though the pain threatened to steal every sense from his body, he smiled.

"All these wars are… over…"

-_-

"Another sleepless night, Roger…?"

He stirred, hearing a voice call to him. His eyes flickered open, and Dorothy was standing above him, dressed in her typical black maid's suit.

"…not really… but it may has well have been for how I feel."

He lifted himself to his feet and followed her groggily down the stairs.

"How did you know where I was?"

She turned to face him, and for a moment he thought he caught a glimpse of light in her eyes, but he wasn't sure.

"I thought you may have gone in there. I've… found my way there… before, as well. Did you see the Phoenix?"

"No," he answered, to tired to question what in the hell the Phoenix was.

As they sat down to breakfast – the usual eggs and toast – he turned his head to the window, filling the kitchen with artificial light.

And he heard them singing.


	9. Facade

Roger didn't really eat his breakfast that morning. He broke the egg yolks with his fork and traced idle designs of yellow over the rough surface of the toast.

"Do you not feel well this morning, Master Roger?" Norman asked, his voice calm and slightly soothing as usual.

"No, I'm just not hungry. It's not that the food is bad… you always cook well… I just don't think I can eat right now."

There were a couple moments of silence at the table as Roger continued drawing on the toast and Dorothy chewed her own softly.

"What day is it, Norman?"

"Why, I believe it is Sunday. Why, Master Roger?"

"No particular reason. Just like to keep up with the rest of the world, even if there are no such things as fairy tales."

With this, he left the table and went to his bedroom to change. Normally he ate breakfast in his warm, freshly pressed suit, but this morning he had been far too lazy to do much more than haul himself off the floor. In truth, he wasn't feeling too well, but this was no time at all to come down with some type of sickness. He laced up his shiny dress shoes and closed the door behind him.

He could have easily made the trip in half the time by driving the Griffon, but this morning the car seemed large and awkward, and out of place in the snow covered world. So instead he allowed the cold to embrace him, allowed his face and eyes to be stung by the wind and to let the powdery snow cling to his boots as he made his way to the inner part of town.

You could still see the single tree from far away. Trees were becoming a rarity in the world these days… there was less and less green and more and more grey. There seemed to be a sort of light coming from it… an odd, warm type of light that seemed to remind him of something people had lost.

No one really came outside these days, he observed, and he doubted it was solely because of the winter chill. There was something hanging from the roof of the dome that protected the city – the dome that kept them all "safe." Or, anyway, they people that they thought counted.

Roger found himself recalling the saxophone player and his blind girlfriend that he'd met not too long ago… in a course of events that seemed to lead up to…

_To what?_

They had both been very nice people, he remembered… but something had cast them aside and they had nothing. How could they have been so happy with what little they had?

He envied them and their happiness. Everything he could ever need was inside the stately mansion, he had a well-paying job and a decently respectable position in society… so why was he so discontent?

What had he lost?

What had humanity lost?

Corners and cobwebs of his odd dream haunted him as he crossed the deserted streets. He stopped occasionally to read the lipstick-smeared messages all over cars… houses… people who had been killed in the recent crime spree. Sometimes they more of vanished than died… but everyone, even Dastun, seemed to have given up finding the culprit. Things seemed unnaturally like a television with bad reception… the people who were actually out on such a cold day seemed to be speaking a foreign language as he made his way toward his destination.

What _had_ humanity lost? There had certainly been something before… but…

Now, there were no dreams come true, no fairy-tale endings. There was only life and what you made of it. Or what it made of you.

He snow littered the streets, blowing and mixing with itself, coating the greyish slush that had been there before. Eventually it was gone, and the world was coated in an unbroken blanket that seemed to tuck it in, nurture it like a mother, and keep it safe. The snow stuck in the branches and the needles of the tree, frosting it like a candy in a shop.

…_candy?_

What's that?

Where do I know that from…?

The old building was almost unrecognizable underneath all the snow on the roof. It seemed to cover the holes in the tiles rather than fall through them, and he could see a warm glow coming through the window.

He opened the large, carved doors to join the people inside… only to find there were none.

_I heard them, though!_

…they were singing!

There was a lone, shadowed figure standing by the altar. It raised a delicate hand and made an annoyed gesture.

"I was wondering when you'd get here, Roger. You sure took long enough."


	10. the end

****

THE END.

I am done writing this fic. plain and simple. there is no more to it.

so, please, stop emailing me. seriously. it's not on hiatus, and I will never have another chapter up.

why?

the answer is simple - I've moved on to better things. this was a great fic to work on while it lasted, but before long it wasn't fun anymore - it was just a burden, something that I HAD to write to make the people who read it happy. I guess I'm not meant to write series… because it's very hard for me.

I hate HAVING to write. I prefer to write when I find myself inspired to do so. I may write some more Big-O stuff in the future, but I very much doubt I will ever finish this story. I'm not sure where it's going anymore, for one thing. another is that my writing style has changed a bit since I started writing this, so it would seem weird to continue it.

for those of you who wish to know what the fic would have revealed, here goes:

the majority of paradigm's children were taken to a lab in the subway to learn how to use the Big(s). during experimentation one day, something (not sure what) went horribly wrong, causing the mass slaughter of the children. it was such a traumatic even that the citizens of paradigm lost their memories. roger was the only one to survive, because his parents got him out of the lab, dying in the process. (ever notice how most people in the series are either a lot older or a lot younger than roger?) dorothy was created by old wayneright to replace his daughter, lost in the event. he went a bit insane during the process. rosewater is the scientist who developed the Big(s), and he and angel are working together to try and restart the program. it's not working. the significance of the church is that they were always against the Big development program, and were thus destroyed by rosewater. this is why the church and the neighborhood around it are in such disrepair. the people gather there if they have the memory of mourning for the children. 

this is the course of events the fic would have taken, had I finished it:

roger discovers the secrets of the church from angel. rosewater tries to get him to help with the Big program. he says no. rosewater gets the military on his side. bad stuff, ne? they go after roger, trying to tell him of the benefits of the program, and how it could bring life back to paradigm. roger, with his memories of green and nightmares of destruction, says no, once more, and tries to leave the city. the military stops him on the way out. the new Big(s) go on a rampage because their pilots are not experienced enough, destroying the city. dorothy is killed trying to protect roger from dastun, who has taken rosewater's side. this proves her human feelings - both for roger and for the welfare of the city. roger takes dorothy to the old church and lays her on the alter. he writes beside her "all these wars are over." he then leaves for a better place. paradigm is left in ruins. 

the end. like I said, there is no more. at least for now.

thanks for reading, and if you'd like something more recent, go check out the other stuff I've got up here.

-megumi


End file.
